How do I speed up construction in my base?

[Abt9]

I'm currently having sanity problems with slow construction progresses. It seems like there aren't enough dupes available to construct things. Is this a common problem? Is there a way to improve the construction speed? (Other than the obvious ones like skills)

[Mr.Trueba]

Organize the priorities and take more dupes.

With at least 4 dupes only for dig and build, you can make a base very fast.

[OxCD]

More dups is a double-edged sword. I would better advise to reorganize priorities, even if just temporary.

It's difficult to say how, without knowing how's your base set, & how's your organisation thought. 

[Zarylo]

When was the last time you saw the "idle duplicants" notification? A healthy colony tends to have bored duplicants every now and then. If not chances are they are getting more chores than they can handle, and they will only do some of those high priority tasks.

Investigate what is keeping your dupes from working. Be it too much ranching, tidying, or supplying. "long commutes" might be your culprit too.

Your reports are your friend. Have a look at them.

If that does not help you may want to overthink the priorities you've set for your duplicants.

[Oozinator]

36 minutes ago, OxCD said:

More dups is a double-edged sword. I would better advise to reorganize priorities, even if just temporary.

+1
Even with 5 dupes i have many "IDLE" notifications..

[Coolthulhu]

• Have a compactor filled with building materials near the construction. Dupes take materials for about 4 constructions, even when they can carry much more than that.
• Have at least one dupe with construction as his highest priority job (baring the emergency ones, like switch flipping and medical)
• Ensure dupes aren't suffocating at construction site. If they are, put a algal terrarium in it - it doesn't produce a lot, but enough to "wheeze"

[Lacost]

More Dupes don't directly translate into faster construction speed. If you get new, unskilled Dupes they may take an eternity to reach your construction side because of their low athletics or take even longer to build stuff with their +0 construction.

 

To speed up construction try this:

 

1. Specialize your Dupes. You need dedicated cooks, farmers and operators. I personally also go for dedicated builders that are the only ones allowed to construct things. This levels up their construction attribute which in the long run saves you time. If you ever watched a +0 construction Dupe building a temp shift plate, you will know what I mean.

 

2. Learn how to use the priority system effectively. Your builders should always focus on constructing and stay clear of secondary work like operating or supplying your buildings. It is also beneficial to assign Hauler-Dupes that only run around your base and do these chores so that your more specialized Dupes are not distracted.

 

3. Storage compactors can waste a lot of time if they are set to high priorities. Ideally, you want your Dupes to only sweep the floor if they have nothing better to do, so make sure every general storage compactor has a reduced priority set to it. Your Dupes might also start to re-store all of your stuff if you build new compactors with higher priorities than the previous ones.

 

4. When expanding you might want to build stuff on all sites of the map. This is a problem since your Dupes will constantly run from construction site to construction site and get nothing really done. Be sure to have only one active building site or assign the right priorities so your Dupes work on only one project instead of all at once.

 

5. Build infrastructure. You need either atmo suits or oxygen available at every construction site. You also want to shorten the travel time as much as possible. Always build a tiled floor and provide fire poles to increase travel speed. Setting up storage compactors will also help with travel times as well as choosing the right building materials. Sedimentary rock in slime biome, igneous rock in caustic biome, granite in ice biome etc. This way your Dupes only have to pick up stuff from the floor around the construction side and don't have to run back to your base to get sandstone.

 

6. Automated airlock doors or atmo suit stations can sabotage your construction if they block the pathing of your Dupes (happens when atmo suits are recharging and the Dupe can't pass through them). If the path is blocked, a Dupe will drop what they carry and search for a new task to perform. In extreme cases, it is impossible to build something behind such barriers so be sure to double check the pathing of your Dupes.

[goatt]

if building site is far away, build a storage bin to store building materials near building site will drastically speed up your building speed cuz of far less time spent on commute.

[Yoma_Nosme]

Use materials from the site if far away.

I.e use igneous rock to build ladders and tiles close to magma biome etc.

Basically anything they dig through to get to the site shall be your first choice material for most parts. It makes no sense having dupes climb ladders up and down just to get some sandstone. 

Take care of air supply or exosuits if necessary. 

Everything else has been mentioned already. 

Cheers

[Nightinggale]

1 hour ago, Lacost said:

3. Storage compactors can waste a lot of time if they are set to high priorities. Ideally, you want your Dupes to only sweep the floor if they have nothing better to do, so make sure every general storage compactor has a reduced priority set to it. Your Dupes might also start to re-store all of your stuff if you build new compactors with higher priorities than the previous ones.

This depends on what you are doing. I usually place storage compactors under water, set it to 8 and only allow slime in it. This helps to prevent filling the slime biome with polluted oxygen full of slimelung and it keeps the slime safe until I get some slime refining going.

General storage just to get rid of stuff should usually be set to something like 2 though. If you want to get rid of items from floors due to decor in often used areas (like next to beds), use the sweep function.

1 hour ago, Lacost said:

4. When expanding you might want to build stuff on all sites of the map. This is a problem since your Dupes will constantly run from construction site to construction site and get nothing really done. Be sure to have only one active building site or assign the right priorities so your Dupes work on only one project instead of all at once.

You can use doors to restrict access to specific dupes. As your base increase in size, you might not want all dupes to be able to access everything in your base as this can easily result in long commutes. This is true for all tasks, not just construction.

[Abt9]

Thanks for tips. But one thing, doesn't debris increase the construction time?

[Yoma_Nosme]

17 minutes ago, Abt9 said:

Thanks for tips. But one thing, doesn't debris increase the construction time?

Afaik, no. Only hits the decor...

[Mr.Trueba]

With 12-16 dupes I have not idle times in hundreds of cycles.

Idle time only means you are not growing fast enough ando you have not planned your base well.

You maybe only need 4 dupes with an automatic base. 

1. Cook - Tidy

2. Operate - Artist

3. Farm and maybe ranch

4. Research - Doctor

The rest of the dupes can be focused in Build, Dig and Supply, and you will build at very fast rate.

Also you neeed to build with materials near the building. If you use igneus rock in ice biome you will need more time that if you use granite.

And use firepoles. They are the best way to move very fast from one point to another.

Ah, and you need to make your builders exosuit engineers, because the weight load and the movement speed. For me, that is the best job for everyone.

 

[natanstarke]

Super focus is the keyword i see, do ONE project at a time if something is dragging your attention maybe thats needed to be solved first? Reset all prioritys and then reset one by one, let build be the top priority for everyone also dig and ONLY 2 or 3 supply + storage with  a storage bin close to construction site. If your food, water and oxy supplys are ok you can run without cooking anything etc for like 12 cycles or more.

[Abt9]

Ah right. I was doing multiple project at once, largely two - infrastructure and exploration. Guess I need to do what's more urgent first >.<

 

Btw I'm far from going to space still in cycle 250. Is this normal?

[OxCD]

39 minutes ago, Abt9 said:

Btw I'm far from going to space still in cycle 250. Is this normal?

Lol. I've waited for, if I remember correctly, 1200 cycles before to go to space for the first time. Some players, playing from the beginning of the early access, or close, have never sent any rocket. Not because we are bad, but because there are so much to do underground that you can play thousands of cycles without the needs or the will to space travel.

[Abt9]

2 minutes ago, OxCD said:

Lol. I've waited for, if I remember correctly, 1200 cycles before to go to space for the first time. Some players, playing from the beginning of the early access, or close, have never sent any rocket. Not because we are bad, but because there are so much to do underground that you can play thousands of cycles without the needs or the will to space travel.

Ahhh. But wouldn't comets gradually pierce through the surface and obliterate everything underground?

[OxCD]

1 minute ago, Abt9 said:

Ahhh. But wouldn't comets gradually pierce through the surface and obliterate everything underground?

Nop, the opposite. Crashing comets are piling up on the surface.

[Abt9]

3 hours ago, OxCD said:

Nop, the opposite. Crashing comets are piling up on the surface.

Oh? I've seen plenty of posts about comets washing away the surface, eventually heating up the top biomes. Maybe it's the past? =>

[JohnFrancis]

3 hours ago, Abt9 said:

Oh? I've seen plenty of posts about comets washing away the surface, eventually heating up the top biomes. Maybe it's the past? =>

Yeah that was an old issue, the devs patched it out so now the surface remains pretty static.

As for getting dupes to do what you want when you want, it check out the below priorities tutorial. Most of the time you don't need more dupes you just need to have their priorities set correctly and specialize a few for the correct tasks.

Spoiler

 

 

[KittenIsAGeek]

There's usually a period of time during the early base progression where not a lot of building gets done in my base.  During this time, most of my dupe's time is spent researching and taking care of food and other life-critical jobs. At a later point I'll have them stop research for a little while and update many of my systems.  This slow period for my base often has two critical aspects: 1) Not very many dupes (usually 4 or 5) and 2) lots of systems that require dupe interaction.

For example, mealwood is very dupe labor intensive.  So its a good idea to transition away from mealwood as soon as you get the chance.  Additionally, my early bristlebloom are often in Planter Boxes.  Moving them to a hydroponic system reduces dupe labor considerably.  Other examples include manual generators, outhouses, wash basins, and travel times.

Once I've replaced several systems with ones that require less frequent dupe interaction, I can go back to research AND add to my base.  That isn't to say that any one of the examples I've posted above is bad.  Instead, its the combination of few dupes and multiple dupe labor intensive systems.

[Abt9]

Anyway, I was able to speed up construction by factor of 10. Thanks guys!